Informative/ Explanatory/Expository Writing

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Informative/ Explanatory/Expository Writing
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Expository Writing

• Expository is another word for explaining. In an
  expository essay you may be asked to give
  information about something or you might be asked
  to explain something.
• Example What is your favorite sport and why?
• Clue words explain, discuss, show, clarify,
  inform, describe, talk about, tell/write why,
  explain how, compare/contrast, show the
  causes/effects of

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Essay Structure

• There is no ONE WAY to structure an informative
  essay.
• The strategy you use to structure an essay
  depends upon your purpose and your topic.
• Sometimes you can incorporate more than one
  strategy in a single essay.

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Strategies

• Definition
• Cause and Effect Analysis
• Comparison and Contrast
• Process Analysis
• Example
• Division or Analysis
• Classification

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Definition
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Possible Topics

• A current slang expression
• Bullying in the digital age
• A good friend
• Cowardice
• Self-respect
• Stop and frisk
• Osmosis
• The Great Depression
• Occupy Wall Street

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Introduction Suggestions

• Provide a base from which to expand while
  explaining why the forthcoming definition is
  useful, significant, or necessary
• You may report the incident that prompted you to
  define why the subject is important.
• Specify the common understandings, or
  misunderstandings, about its meaning.

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Introduction (continued)

• Discuss the etymology of the word.
• Offer a quote from another writer supporting or
  contradiction your definition.
• Offer an explanation of what it does NOT mean.
• State your thesis so readers will know precisely
  what you purpose and point are.
• AVOID the overused The American Heritage
  Dictionary defines _________ as . . .

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Body Organization Suggestions

• Connect to your perspective (thesis point).
• Proceed paragraph by paragraph to refine the
  characteristics or qualities of the subject,
  arranged to distinguish it from other similar
  subjects.
• Draw increasingly tight boundaries from broader
  and familiar to the one you have in mind.

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Organization Continued . . .

• Arrange points in order of increasing drama.
• Begin with your own experience with the subject
  and show how you see it operating in your
  surroundings.

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Conclusion Suggestions

• Summarize your definition.
• Indicate its superiority to other definitions of
  the same subject.
• Quote another writer whose view supports your
  own.
• Recommend how readers can make use of the
  information you have provided.
• As always, the choice of conclusion in any essay
  depends on your purpose and the impression you
  want to impart.

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Compare and Contrast Analysis
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Possible Topics

• A memory of someone and a recent encounter
• Two pieces of literature with similar themes but
  different styles
• Older and newer version of a product
• Heroes today and in ancient Greece
• The views of two political candidates
• Two different chemical reactions
• Two cars

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Compare and Contrast

• They usually work together.
• This strategy is good for subjects that warrant
  side-by-side comparison.
• The subjects usually resemble each other in some
  respects but differ in others.

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Explanatory Comparison

• Explain the similarities and differences between
  subjects so as to make either or both of them
  clear.
• An explanatory comparison does NOT take a
  position on the relative merits of the subjects.
• Example Explain how the new teen driving laws
  differ from the old laws.

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Evaluative Comparison

• Evaluate subjects so as to establish their
  advantages/disadvantages, strengths/weaknesses,
  etc.
• The evaluative comparison DOES take a position
  and usually concludes with a preference or a
  selected course of action.
• Example Argue how the new teen driving laws
  prevent more accidents than the old laws did

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Explanatory/Evaluative

• Both types of comparisons treat two or more
  subjects from the same general class.
• Identify features shared by bothpoints of
  comparison.
• This assures a direct rather than a random
  comparison.
• Example dietsforbidden foods, allowed foods,
  speed of weight loss, nutritional quality

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Introduction Suggestions

• Decide whether you are going to explain the
  similarities and differences between subjects in
  order to make either or both of them clearan
  EXPLANATORY comparison OR you are going to
  evaluate the subjects in order to establish their
  advantages and disadvantagesan EVALUATIVE
  comparison.
• Your THESIS will depend on this decision
• EXPLANATION Though rugby requires less strength
  and more stamina than American football, the two
  games are very much alike in their rules and
  strategies.
• EVALUATION The two diets result in similarly
  raid weight loss, but Harriss requires much
  more self-discipline and is nutritionally much h
  riskier than Marconis.

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Body Organization Suggestions

• Generally give subjects equal emphasis when they
  are equally familiar or are being evaluated.
• Stress one subject over the other when it is less
  familiar.
• Generally stress similarities and differences
  equally when all the points of comparison are
  equally familiar.

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Organization Continued . . .

• Stress the differences with subjects that are
  usually considered similar.
• Stress the similarities between subjects that are
  usually considered different.
• Subject-by-subject each one is explained in
  full, one before the other (usually reserved for
  short essays)
• Point-by-point points are covered one at a time
  (usually the more useful approach)

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Conclusion Suggestions

• Help the reader see the whole picture.
• Comment on the significance of the comparison.
• Advise readers on how they can use the
  information.
• Recommend a specific course of action for readers
  to follow.

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Cause and Effect Analysis
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Possible Topics

• A change of mind about an important issue
• What accounts for the popularity of ___________ ?
• Why is the United States facing an economic
  crisis?
• How does a persons addiction impact his/her
  family?
• What effects do you expect your work ethic to
  have on your career choice?
• Speculate on the resulting reaction when you
  combine _____ and ______ and explain why that
  will occur.
• Why do people root for the underdog?

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Purpose

• Use this method when dividing occurrences into
  their elements to find relationships among them.
• Analyze CAUSES to discover which of the events
  PRECEDING a specified outcome actually made it
  happen.
• Analyze EFFECTS to discover which of the events
  FOLLOWING a specified occurrence actually
  resulted from it.

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Purpose Continued . . .

• Your purpose in analyzing might be to EXPLAIN or
  to PERSUADE.
• EXPLAIN order experience and pin down the
• connections in it.
• ARGUE show why one explanation of causes
• is more accurate than another
• OR
• how a proposed action will produce
• desirable or undesirable consequences.

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The Challenge

• Related events sometimes overlap, sometimes
  follow each other immediately, and sometimes
  connect over gaps in time.
• Events vary in duration and complexity.
• Events vary in importance.
• Analysis requires identifying them, but also
  discerning their relationships accurately and
  weighing their significance fairly.

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Challenges Continued . . .

• Causes and effects often occur in a sequence,
  each contributing to the next in a CAUSAL CHAIN.
  Identifying this chain involves sorting out
  events in time
• IMMEDIATE the causes or effects occur nearest
  the event
• REMOTE the causes or events occur further away
  in time.

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Challenges Continued . . .

• Analyzing causes also requires distinguishing
  their relative importance in the sequence
• MAJOR These causes are directly and primarily
  responsible for the outcome.
• MINOR These causes (also called CONTRIBUTORY)
  merely contribute to the outcome.

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Pitfalls

• A confusion of the coincidence and the causein
  other words, an assumption that because one event
  preceded another, it must have caused the other
  (post hocafter this, therefore because of this)
• Examples
• superstitions illustrate post hoc
• A accuses B of ________ . B is upset and leaves
  in his car. Shortly after, B has an accident.
  Bs friend accuses A of causing the accident. In
  the absence of proof, the friend commits the
  error of post hoc by asserting that A caused Bs
  accident simply because his accusation preceded
  the accident.

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Pitfalls Continued . . .

• OVER-SIMPLIFICATION consider not only the causes
  and effects that seem obvious but all
  possibilities remote as well as immediate, minor
  as well as major.
• NECESSARY cause one that must happen I order for
  an effect to come about an effect can have more
  than one necessary cause.
• SUFFICIENT cause one that brings about the
  effect by itself.

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Pitfalls Continued . . .

• Over-simplification can also occur if you allow
  opinions or emotions to cloud the interpretation
  of evidence.
• To achieve a balanced analysis, you have to put
  aside your own feelings and consider all possible
  causes for the occurrence.

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Planning/Prewriting

• Whether your subject suggests a focus on causes,
  effects, or both list as many of them as you can
  from memory or from research.
• Ask
• Why did it happen?
• What contributed to it?
• What were or are the result
• What might its consequences be?
• One or more of these questions should lead you to
  a focus for the essay.

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Planning Continued . . .

• Arrange the causes or effects in sequence and
  weigh their relative importance.
• Anticipate the expectations and needs of your
  audience, considering what they already know and
  what they need to be told.
• Develop a THESIS that states your subject, your
  perspective on it, and your purpose. The thesis
  should reflect your judgments about the relative
  significance of possible causes or effects.

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Introduction Suggestions

• Pull readers in by describing the situation whose
  causes or effects you plan to analyze.
• Provide backgrounda brief narrative of the
  situation, a summary of the analysis of causes
  and effects that your essay will dispute.
• If your thesis is not already apparent, stating
  it explicitly can tell readers exactly what your
  purpose is and which causes and effects you plan
  to highlight. (If you anticipate readers will
  oppose your thesis, you may wait to state it
  until the end after you have provided proof.)

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Body Organization

• The arrangement of your ideas will depend on your
  material and your emphasis.
• CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER for events that unfold in a
  causal chaineach event causing another effect.
• ORDER OF IMPORTNCE if events overlap or vary in
  significance, try. Tis shows which events are
  major and which minor and reserves your most
  significant (and most detailed) point for last.

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Conclusion Suggestions

• You may want to restate your thesisor state it
  if you deliberately withheld it for the endso
  that readers are left with the point of your
  analysis.
• If your analysis is complex, readers may benefit
  from a summary of the relationships you have
  identified.
• Depending on your purpose, you may want to
  specify why your analysis is significant, what
  use the readers can make of it, or what action
  you hope they will take.

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Works Cited

• Aaron, Jane E. 40 Model Essays A Portable
• Anthology. Boston Bedford, 2005.